


washed out

by fatiguedfern



Category: Dangan Ronpa - All Media Types, New Dangan Ronpa V3: Everyone's New Semester of Killing
Genre: Backstory, Canon Compliant, Gen, Pre-Canon, Spoilers, headcanon heavy, i think
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-12
Updated: 2017-05-12
Packaged: 2018-10-31 03:41:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,086
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10890948
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fatiguedfern/pseuds/fatiguedfern
Summary: She'd scrub until her skin cracks and her fingers bleed and her future brightens.





	washed out

It’s Tuesday today and that meant that it was Kirumi’s turn to polish the bathrooms ‘til they looked like more than the bacteria-invested stalls that they were. 

Business had been slow that month and they’d cut costs on anything inessential, so her hands are bare of the disposable gloves that tore as easily as the condoms reception keep stocked for guests who craved the utmost confidentiality. She scrubs at the chipped ceramic toilet bowl in well-practiced circular motions and can almost feel the dried shit crusting around her cuticles.

The inn she works at can hardly be classified as such; the only people daring to even step foot in the dump being travelers passing through and anyone seeking refuge from the rest of the town’s prying eyes. She hates it here and would gladly let the cesspool rot if she could, but the owner was willing to overlook the age of a girl who couldn’t of possibly looked older than twelve. Surely that deserved some loyalty.

The sudden arrival of the group of twelve is met with the surprise of most of the staff and the dismay of Kirumi, who’s left to trail behind and pick up their emptied beer bottles after them. Fortunately for her, they fall into the traveller category and don’t darken the hotel’s doorstep again. The cleanup takes her a good few hours to finish all six rooms, but at least the group leaves behind a few bent magazines, which gives her more reading material than the dog-eared cookbooks loaned from Chef Ishikawa (the validity of that title is debatable, though Kirumi elects to say nothing) from the kitchen.

The magazines can’t be older than a month or two, snippets of news she has heard in past weeks mostly depicted. She’s reading through another article on a couple she hasn’t heard of before for the third time when she finally reads the entirety of the advertisement at the bottom of the page.

As isolated as her town is, it isn’t detached enough for her to not have heard of, or even watched, _DanganRonpa_. She’d never payed the series much thought, only ever averted her eyes when it was playing on the cracked TV-screen in the lobby or dutifully looking elsewhere whenever spotting the occasional shirt or pin with the two-toned bear printed across. Whatever she disgust felt towards the franchise and the people who worshipped it was replaced with hope as she checks the neatly cut-out magazine advertisement again.

The bus fare costs nearly half of the savings she’s stored in the base of her mattress, so she ends up renting a room that’s still far nicer than hers at a place not unlike the one she has grown accustomed to. The city itself overwhelms her senses. The walk through streets passes in a flash of speeding cars and bustling stalls and buildings so tall they scrape the polluted heavens. She’s out of place here in her patchwork skirt and dust-flecked shirt. An isolated girl misplaced in a city broader than her horizons, but she’ll clutch onto the hope that brought her here. After all, it’s the only thing other than the neon-lighted signboards leading her through the stifling masses.

 

She picks at the peeling skin on her fingertips. It’s a bad habit, she knows, but her frayed nerves feel no need to validate the action. Likely due to her late sign-up, Kirumi’s one of the last to be called on. 

It’s odd for a franchise as colourful as _DanganRonpa_ to have such a bland office branch. The halls are colourless and the room in which she’s interviewed is equally as stark. 

The balding man sat across from her stares at Kirumi indifferently and saying a seemingly well-used phrase. “State your name and interviewee number,” the man pauses in afterthought, “please.”

Kirumi frowns, almost certain that the man knew already, her open file splayed out in front of him proving as much. “Toujou Kirumi, 510.”

The rest of the interview dissolves into similar questions.

_“Age?”_

_“Sixteen.”_

_“Date of birth?”_

_“The tenth of May.”_

_“Schooling?”_

The image of the temporary receptionist sounding out syllables from the phonebook comes to mind.

_“None.”_

_“Profession, if any?”_

_“Cleaner at a local inn.”_

The man’s indifferent mask shifts slightly, as if he can smell a tragic plot to feed to viewers.

_“Motives for auditioning?”_

_“I- I don’t know.”_

She’s just tired of scrubbing her life away.

 

The ride back to her town is exhausting and once she tiredly stumbles into the inn, all she wants to do is plonk herself down on her bare mattress upstairs. She doesn’t get to do so immediately because then Ishikawa is charging at her with his newest concoction and the newest receptionist is smiling at her from her post at the desk and the owner’s welcoming back their so-called favourite employee and Ishikawa’s pouting and Kirumi’s smiling and everything’s okay. Even if she just spent her savings on a most likely (hopefully) failed attempt at getting herself killed.

It’s Wednesday today and Kirumi’s supposed to be cleaning the kitchen, but Ishikawa fried the wiring better than he did the food again and the electrician from down the street was trying to fix the mess. So instead, Kirumi’s playing Blackjack with a beat up deck of cards against another traveller. She’s, to be frank, whipping his ass and slowly winning back her savings. The game’s interrupted just as Kirumi’s about to take the round.

The mailman awkwardly stands in the entrance, clearly not used to delivering to their side of town with emailing being a thing. Oddly enough, after he deposits the letter at reception Kirumi isn’t called to deliver the mail to one of their regulars, but instead simply handed the letter. 

The envelope is nothing special, white with the inn’s address printed in a finer print than what was suiting, but it’s arrival definitely is and she can feel three sets of eyes fixated upon her as she carefully tears open the paper. 

The first slip of paper is a letter of acceptance from _Team DanganRonpa_ and she can already feel the dread pooling in her stomach. The second appears to be some unfinished wikia-page of her character and _oh god_. Kirumi would start sobbing right there and then if it weren’t for the remaining particles of cheap cleaning detergents clogging her tearducts. So the words stay untainted by anything other than their implications and she knows that no amount of bleach would rid her of this stain.

_SHSL Maid_

**Author's Note:**

> the belated birthday fic that had literally nothing to do with birthdays


End file.
